The Daily News. TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1917. SANGUINARY FIGHTING.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 May 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1917. SANGUINARY FIGHTING.

The> lighting that is now taking place ' along the whole Western front, and particularly in the British sector of Arras, is probably the bloodiest the world has ever seen. We in our comfortable quarters in New Zealand cannot visualise the deadliness, the awfulness of the struggle. It is a life and death business, and the German, to give the devil his due, is dying hard. His utter disregard of life is appalling. Philip Gibbs tells us that lie is fighting desperately anil ferociously, flinging great forces into the battle in order to steta the victorious onrush of the British. Opposite Gemappe and Gavrelle, where the fighting is still intense, the Germans are dying in heaps, but there are masses of living behind, and other masses behind them. The correspondent says that under our bombardment south of the Scarpe enemy losses were so large that they amounted I to a real massacre. The German High] Command never did consider human life. They never counted the cost; the end to be attained was everything with them. But now they have met- their match—we believe more than their match—in the British, both as respect individual fighting ability, mechanical efficiency and morale'. By the relentless pressure of the British and French armies, he has been forced out o£ his trc-nches and dugouts and been made to give battle in tho open. Hero his tactics of fighting in dense formations exactly suits the plans of the Anglo-French, who are able to bring their great artillery, light and heavy, to bear. The result is massacre, as Philip Gibbs describes it. The Germans have always prided themselves upon their knowledge of flighting, yet an army 1 manoeuvred into the open cannot have much adaptability when it suffors division after division to be practically wiped out by the artillery fire of tho Allies. Of course, this style of fighting suits the book of the Allies admirably, for its expedites the process of attrition. Only by the numerical reduction of the enemy fighting force can the war be won. The test of all military success, as John Budian, the historian tells us, is the distinction of the enemy's power of resistance, and that power depends upon his possession of an adequate field army. Success is not the occupation of territory, or of successive emumy lines, or of famous enemy fortresses. These things may be means, but they are not in themselves the end. And if these things are won without the end being neared, the winner of them has not only not advanced;" he has gone backward, since ho has espended great fo-v.es for an idle purpose, and is thereby crippled for future efforts. Strategically Germany long ago failed. To quote Buchan:—Germany's original strategic purpose was sound—to destroy one by one the Allied field armies. Her urgent need was a speedy and final victory. The Marne and First Ypres deprived her of this hope, and she never regained it. The Allies took the strategical offensive, and, by pinning her to her lines and drawing round her the net of their blockade, compelled her to a defensive war. In the J largest sense the» Allied offensive dated from the beginning of 19i5. But it was J an offensive which did not include the .tactical initiative. So long as the Allies were deflebienC in equipment Germany was able to take the! taotical offensive. Instances were the Second Battle of Ypros and the great' German advance in the East. "A weakening Power," in the words «f General Foch, "must be always Attacking," and these various movements were undertaken In the hope that tactiical. success might ,gradually restore the strategic balance. This hopo was doomjad to disappointment. yiWortes., indeed, were won, brilliant victories, But they led nowhere; By-and*by came the lasJ attempts, the onslaughts on Verdun and' the Trentino; and the failure of these prepared the way for the Allies themselves to take the taotical initiative, Germany was now tactically as well aB strategically on her defence. The essence of German tactics was their reliance upon guns. For them artillery was the primary and infantry the secondary arm. They looked to win battles at long range, confident in an elaborate machine to which their opponenta could provide no .equivalent. Tlieir whole strategical plau was upon this taotical calculation. It miscarried; but at the beginning of the war there was some ground for their confidence. To improvise an equivalent machine might reasonably have been con--"sidered beyond the power of France and 'Russia. But three things combined to frustrate the stubborn fight against odds of gll- the, AlKos, .their command .of the sea which .allowed them to import munitions till their own producing power had) deyejgped, and the industrial capacity of Britain which enabled her to manufacture lou the whole Alliance. Faced With an artillery equipment of anything, like equal strength, the Ger« man tacticß were ineffective, ; and' when the day came that the Allies had a stronger munitionment than their enemy, they were both futile and perilous. That is the danger of fighting behind 'the shelter of a machine. Merij accustomed to a long-range contest will be helpless when the battle comes to close quarters. How can infantry trained as a secondary arm stand against infantry which lias been taught that on it primarily resti the decision? The quaility can newer bs the same. At first 1 the defect may be mat by greater quantity, but a$ effectives decline quality will come by its own. 'Chin i? conclusively shown by what- is going 011 at present. Now that then" artillery is overmatched, 'the Germans are forced :«;to the. open, there/to be cut to pieces, \vhilst«in the hand to-hand lighting the Allies ara easily superior/ _ A^ain,

the quality o£ tlie Gerniai'B is deteriorating so rapidly.- A noticeable feature oi Saturday's lighting was the number of youths, half of the ipisoners from two divisions being youths of 19, and.state, meats show that half the troops of 19 are already serving at the,front. The Battle of .Verdun may be ta]£en as the Hual proof of the "fallacy of 1 German tactics. They were, intrinsically wrong, and coui.l only have succeeded if tho whirlwind fury of the first German assault had immediately achieved its object. So soon ae Germany was reducod to a strategical defensive they became a signal danger. For sooner or later her artillery was bound to be met by an equal or greater equipment, and then she could only retrieve the taotical inferiority of her infantry by tho use of superior numbers. When numbers failed her it would appear that, sooner or later, she must accept defeat.